Heathenism

As the fall weather continues to astound locals and visitors alike in Krakow, I have taken the opportunity to take a closer look at some of the sites that I initially overlooked, namely those of an ecclesiastic nature.  I have been utterly astounded by the beauty contained within a number of these centuries-old palaces of monotheistic worship.  Because photography is either forbidden or requires an additional payment (hey, I'm on a budget!), I have only a few interior photos to share with you that I was able to sneak in before being reprimanded.


Famous Triptych (Closed) in St Mary's Basilica

Starry Blue Ceiling in St Mary's Basilica 



These photos are of St Mary's Basilica (Mariacki), which is the largest and most well-known of Krakow's churches.  One would never know from the massive and simple red-brick exterior that such delicate and intricate beauty resides within.  The triptych is something of a tourist attraction - it is opened every day at 11:50 by a nun in front of an audience of hundreds.  This altarpiece was created in the late 15th century by Veit Stoss and, when open, depicts 12 scenes from the life of Jesus and Mary.  It was disassembled and hidden away during WWII, but the Nazis found it and took it Nuremburg where it barely survived Allied bombing.  It was recovered, restored, and reinstalled in its proper home about 50 year ago.

 

The ceiling blew my mind.  The combination of the height, the richness of the royal blue color, the architectural/structural elements of the gothic ceiling, and the gleaming gold stars were awe-inspiring.  There was also at least one wall of stained glass in the church that had survived since the 14th century!  How is that possible?  Divine intervention, I'm sure.

Royal Cathedral at Wawel Castle

I stepped into at least a half-dozen other churches over the course of the last two weeks.  Besides St Mary's, the other one that really stood out was Wawel Cathedral.  It is here that monarchs of the days of yore were coronated and interred.  Many other prominent Polish visionaries and revolutionaries are buried here as well, including Tadeusz Kościuszko, Adam Mickiewicz, and two Polish Saints.  Wawel Cathedral was built in the 14th century, with many alterations occuring over the years that made the cathedral what it is today - a hodgepodge of towers and domes from different architectural periods.

 

I am leaving Poland in a few days, satisfied with the luxury of time that I granted myself here and the opportunity to truly absorb and reflect upon my surroundings.  I am ready to move on to my next destinations, where I can only hope to be as nourished as I've been here in my great great grandfather's homeland.  The itinerary of these future destinations is coming together in expected and unexpected ways.  Next stop, Paris.  It has been 9 years since I was there last.  Where have the years gone?  

Daytrippin'

Tarnow Train Station

Tarnów – This small town is located about 50 miles east of Kraków, making it a prime candidate for a daytrip via train. Almost as exciting as the destination was the voyage via a decrepit 1935, Poland-built train running on decrepit tracks. Chugging along at a snail’s pace, it took a whopping 90 minutes to cover such a short distance, making the Amtrak trip between LA and San Diego that I’ve used on occasion to visit my folks feel like the TGV. The town was very interesting because, similar to Krakow, much of its medieval center was spared the bombing and razing that have occurred in this part of the world over the centuries by the Swedes, the Tatars, the Germans, and others.

It was practically a ghost town - I was definitely the only American tourist there. The striking thing about Tarnów was that, due to its small size, the Jewish history of the town was much more in-your-face. There were memorial plaques, monuments, and evidence around every corner of how integral Jews were to the Tarnów community. Before the war, they numbered close to 40,000 and made up half the population. An interesting fact about the town is that it was the origin of the first transport of prisoners to Auschwitz.

Ruins of 17th-Century Synagogue

Zakopane – Most Poles rave about the beauty of the Tatra Mountains, which are located along the Polish-Slovakian border to the south of Kraków. This is a sub-range of the Carpathian Mountains. After spending a month in the urban flatlands, I decided it would do me some good to see snow-capped peaks and breathe the fresh mountain air. The bus ride to Zakopane, the main alpine village/jumping off point for outdoor adventures was filled with spectacular vistas as the bus ambled up and across the foothills to reach an elevation of about 2,500 feet. In the wintertime, people come here to ski; during the off-season there is hiking and trekking. All year around, people come here to drink the śliwowica (plum brandy/moonshine), which is more or less lethal with an alcohol content of between 70 and 80 percent.

I spent most of the afternoon trying to secure accommodation. After my unpleasant hostel experience in Amsterdam, I was trying to avoid another hostel so I roamed all over town knocking on doors asking for single rooms. None to be had. One of the pitfalls of traveling solo is that most lodging options are geared towards double-occupancy. So I ended up at the local hostel and it was WORSE than my previous experience. My 6-bed dorm was really an 11-bed dorm, as it was two interconnected rooms sharing the same door and the same bathroom. I just can’t catch a break with these dumps. Oh yeah, and the hostel was at-capacity because it is off-season and the other two Zakopane hostels are shut down until winter.

The Only Photo Evidence of My Presence in Zakopane

I hated all the snoring, stinky, know-it-all, in-your-business foreigners in residence with one exception. I met a really nice kid from Warsaw named Tomasz who was there killing time before starting his new job in November. He knows the town very well because he is there about a dozen times a year. Apparently there is a bus from Warsaw that, if booked far enough in advance, costs only 2 zloty, which is less than $1. And it's an 8-hour trip! You couldn't pay me to sit on a bus for 8 hours. Anyow, we hit it off and afound all kinds of trouble to get into surfing the local bars and sampling all the beers/vodkas/etc. that Poland has to offer. My plan to go for a hike and take photos of the refreshing mountain scenery the next day was shot to hell when I woke up with a sore throat and a hangover. I high-tailed it out of there on the first bus so that I could get back to the comfort of my own bed in Kraków and the cold meds/vitamins that I imported from home!

Deflated in Southern Poland

A few days ago I went to Auschwitz, or as it's known here in Poland, Ocweicim. It took me a day to recover from the experience and now I'm ready to write about it. To add to the mood, please listen to the haunting music of Lana del Rey as you read this...

I have no photos to share, as I purposely did not take any and I was sickened watching other visitors to the camp take videos and snap photos of barbed wire, camp signage, ovens, and human ash pits. It is wrong to do this on so many levels. What are you going to do, go home to Korea/Norway/Germany and assemble all your favorite Auschwitz photos into an album so that you can cherish it forever and show your grandkids photos of your visit to one of the most heart-breaking places on the planet?

Well, that was my reaction on Monday, but today I've calmed down a little bit and am feeling less judgey. This is just what we've been trained to do - when we see something interesting, take a picture. I didn't want any pictorial evidence of my experience. It was more than enough for me to be there and to feel what I needed to feel and then leave.

Yes, I was moved.  Yes, I was disgusted.  Yes, I was devastated.  All of these sentiments are typical and to be expected when putting one foot in front of the other in the footsteps of tragedy, especially one of such abhorrent and calculated inhumanity.  Perhaps it is more meaningful for someone, like myself, who has a personal connection to the events that culminated with the near complete extermination of generations of European Jewry.

However, I did not feel the pain as deeply as I wanted to, as strange as that my sound.  You can't imagine how many people get shuttled through Auschwitz on any given day...and those crowds detract for sure. Especially when the guides seem to be wholly concerned with butting up against the tour group ahead or being rammed by the one behind. It turns the experience into more of an exercise of timing and crowd control than an opportunity to contemplate what is there.

The constant encounters with other tour groups were troubling for another reason. You see, it is compulsory for grade-schoolers from many European countries to take the tour of Auschwitz. While it makes sense in theory, I got the impression that these kids were not mature enough to contextualize what they saw. Many were simply there because they had to be there, and they were more focused on being kids and being on a school trip with their classmates than they were on the subject matter. For someone like me, who was there because I wanted and needed to be there, it was difficult to coexist in this social environment. I found it to be disrespectful to the memory of those who had such a heinous "existence" here and were ultimately murdered. God damnit, there were still bone fragments in the soil from the incinerators!

Wow, I guess I am still trying to make sense of what I saw two days ago. I still feel raw - it's so draining to be pounded for four hours nonstop by shattering and devastating revelation after revelation. It is not digestable like the bit-by-bit history we learn about in school or in documentaries/Hollywood dramas. I feel sorry for the Poles who have to live with this on their soil; their country will always be known by many first and foremost for this hideous three or four years of history.